


mellon

by sierraadeux



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, dan and phil are hobbits, dan is sam, if we want to get into specifics, is this phanfic or a very badly disguised sam/frodo fic?? you decide, phil is frodo, yes this is a lotr au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:49:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24590101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sierraadeux/pseuds/sierraadeux
Summary: Mellon: the Elvish word for "Friend."orthe one where Eli once shouted her most valid hot take that Dan is Sam and Phil is Frodo and it was my duty to write it.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	mellon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lovelydeps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelydeps/gifts).



> wishing the happiest of birthdays to the loveliest eli. she is really one of the most talented, kind hearted, and supportive person i've met in my time in this corner of the internet. if you feel compelled to point out every single inaccuracy of lotr in this to me you're legally required to go wish eli a happy birthday first ! ! 
> 
> that being said dan is sam and phil is frodo, eli is right and she should say it.
> 
> ps if by some twist of fate u are a lotr fan and not a dnp fan that has somehow found this......close ur eyes click away pls thanks

In the center of the Shire, where the greenery was always lush and the food and spirits were always abundant, lived a hobbit- no. Lived two hobbits. Tucked into the rolling hills, something far more than a mere hole, was their home. It was not a small hole, nor a large one, it was the perfect sized hole for two hobbits. With its large flowering garden and its round green door, it was the hole they chose to make a home in – the hole they made a family in after much adventure. 

Dan tended to Phil’s gardens, just as his father did at Bag End far before it belonged to Phil. Though they were no longer solely Phil’s gardens, just as Bag End was no longer solely Phil’s. The flowers were treated with the same love and care regardless of their owner, Dan taking pride in his work, forever wanting to gift the most beautiful flowers to Phil. 

The same flowers that brought Dan to Phil in so many more ways than simply being his gardener. 

Phil still teased Dan about it. The night which started it all, the night Dan still swore to this day was nothing more than mere late night gardening. 

“ _You know I like to tend to the garden after the sun has gone down. There’s nothing better to quiet an unsettled mind than pacing through your flowers,”_ Dan always insisted. 

“ _We all know it was far more than your insomnia. You just had a massive crush on me, you creepy window-stalking weirdo,”_ Phil always rolled his eyes. 

“ _So did you!_ ” 

_“Well, yes. Still do.”_

_“Okay, Mister ‘My Precious’,”_ Dan teased, his fingers still held up in quotes grabbed by Phil, both the men squeaking as they fully fell into the dirt. 

“ _That was ONE TIME!”_ Phil shouted up to the heavens, their chests heaving from lack of breath as laughter filled the air of Hobbiton. 

_“Sure it was.”_

Phil helped out every now and then, Dan teaching him how to tend and care for their garden with their knees knocking together in the dirt. Long, sunny days in which their faces became covered with the soil on the other’s hands – far more always building up at the sides of Dan’s cheeks where Phil allowed his temptation to stick his finger in the dimples that formed there. 

Dan would always let him, for as long as he lived Phil would forever be Dan’s only temptation. He always was and always will be, that was Dan’s fate. And Dan wouldn’t have it any other way. He believed it to be true for Phil as well, through all of what they’ve been through together, he would not change it for the world. Phil reminded Dan of this fact often, though Dan believed him he would never tire hearing the words. Hearing Phil agree that it was time to go home, all the way back in Rivendale – at a time that now felt, and truly was, worlds away – was the very first time Dan truly realized home was so much more than the Shire and tending to the Bag End gardens. Home was Phil. 

That was solidified in the very feeling in his chest as Phil listened in to the secret meeting of the council from his hidden spot, a pull so strong towards Dan the moment he said he would go. 

_“Mister Phil is not going anywhere without me!”_

And that he didn’t. In words spoken far too knowing, even when Dan and Phil didn’t quite know themselves: it was nearly impossible to separate the two of them. 

No matter where they are, or what they do, home would always be in the other. 

Home was not knowing the path but following anyway, for Dan knew safety was so much more than shutting the latch on a hobbit-hole’s door. 

Phil believed he had the same realization much later, though still in a time that felt like another life, upon finding out Dan had carried with him salt from the Shire on their journey. 

Phil understood the moment Dan explained the small wooden box’s contents, because he, too, was carrying with him a small bit of home. Though his was not contained to a mere wooden box, it was deep in his chest. With the one who would always follow. With the warm hands that brushed against his as they walked paths no other mere hobbits would. With sacrifices that needed no debate, as if they were instinctual. Because they were. 

Though as he looked back, in their endless hours of hushed stories and confessions in their shared bed in Bag End, he realized he always knew it. 

It was love that he felt, love in his heart the moment he pulled that idiot Dan out of the water. Phil desperate to go it alone, and Dan so insistent on being at his side that he’d rather drown than not try. It was about so much more than the journey, more than the ring, as they embraced, their clothes soaking them to the bone as they gripped each other. Because Dan had made a promise, one he always intended to keep. 

“ _A promise,”_ Dan had said, so sure in Phil’s ear. His body secure in Phil’s arms. _“‘Don’t you leave him’,”_ Dan’s booming impression made both of their chests shake with Phil’s short laugh. _“And I don’t mean to.”_

And he never did. 

Dan would do anything for Phil. And he has, done everything. Phil will never take that lightly. 

It was love that he felt that day, and now he knew Dan felt that too. Both of them, all along, as if it were fate forever sealed. 

Though Phil has said the opposite, there is not a moment in which he wishes of a different fate. Of one where the ring never came to him, or of one where he never realized just how much Dan meant to him – as the two are not mutually exclusive. There is not love without sacrifice, and there is not joy without sorrow. They both know as much. 

There is no Phil without Dan, no Dan without Phil. And neither of them ever went, or would ever go, where the other couldn’t follow.

Phil would go on the same adventure a thousand times over if it were the difference of having Dan or not. And so would Dan – it was no question. 

But they quite preferred their little home, growing old together in the safety of the Shire. And Dan quite liked it when Phil wasn't nearly getting killed all the time. So their quiet retreat back to Bag End, back home, was not the end of an adventure but merely a continuation of something far greater than any quest imagined: the shared life of Dan and Phil. 

It was more than just a fellowship. They were true companions in life, even beyond their adventures. Two souls bound stronger than any connection to a ring. Though tempted, Dan _and_ Phil exhibited that fact time and time again. Dan made Phil whole, they made each other whole. And that will always be what saved them, what gave them this life they now live. 

They laughed and played and cried and loved. 

They smoked pipe-weed sat atop their little hobbit hole overlooking the Shire. Dan’s hand in the bright green grass as Phil leaned into his shoulder, taking turns seeing who could blow the most impressive ring of smoke. 

They threw far less parties than Bag End was used to, but that was the way they liked it – their adventures leaving them far more introverted than your typical hobbit. They seldom preferred company other than each other, as they were the best of friends. 

And Phil never forgot the Elvish word for friend. He was often caught saying it in the most unfriendly tones. Hushed softly as he brushed Dan’s overgrown curls off of his forehead in the early morning hours. Through the gentle kisses that the open forehead space beckoned for. Said each time he bumped their hips together as they stood doing the washing up, Phil with a rag in his hand while Dan’s hands were deep in soapy dish water.

The word means far more than friend, as friend has always meant far more than its literal meaning to them. 

They joked and teased each other constantly. 

From time to time, Dan still calling Phil “ _Mister Phil”_ only to receive an equally as patronizing “ _Danwise, The Brave”_ in return. 

Dan often sitting by the crackling fire, in one of their two cozy chairs, disrupted by Phil plopping down next to him. His feet slung into Dan’s lap. 

_“Get your nasty hobbit feet off of me!”_ Dan would always, without fail, screech. Though he swatted at them, Phil never relented. And Dan didn’t actually mind anyway. In fact, he quite enjoyed the feeling of Phil’s feet, warming by the fire, in his lap. 

In those moments, Dan couldn’t help but remember all the times in which he thought he lost Phil or was going to lose Phil. Especially that first time back in Rivendale – holding a hand that cold will never leave Dan’s mind. So he guessed he would take a warm foot, if that’s what Phil was offering. 

_“I always thought you would run off with some big elf,”_ Dan said as he rubbed Phil’s feet. 

Phil rolled his eyes, making a show of it as he knew Dan was watching him adoringly. _“I don’t think I’d very much like to hold a hand that isn’t yours.”_

Dan made a fake gagging nose, causing them both to erupt into laughter. 

_“What?”_ Phil got out through giggles, leaning over and grabbing Dan’s hand to prove his point. Their fingers slotted together like each were designed for the other. 

_“Elven hands are too big, they make my hands seem far too tiny,”_ Phil explained, holding their interlocked hands up between them. _“Yours make mine feel small, but not too small. The perfect size.”_

Dan hummed – not entirely understanding Phil, but being too distracted by the softness of his hand to form any coherent thoughts or questions. 

_“I don’t feel small at all when I’m with you,”_ Phil had hummed, once he climbed out of his chair by the fire and into Dan’s lap. _“I could take on the world by your side.”_

And he did. 

_“Legolas could like… get it, though,”_ Phil added with a shrug. An incredulous snort ripped its way from Dan’s chest, Phil shaking against his chest with his giggles. 

Phil truly loved Dan’s curly hobbit hair the most, though it was no secret he had a bit of a thing for big, buff blondes. And Dan couldn’t blame him for that at all. Not when he was guilty of it too. 

_“Get in line, bud.”_

Sometimes they wondered if the quiet, simple life was enough for them. Dan often worried if it was merely the adventure that brought them together that kept the spark aflame. But there was never a reason to worry. 

Dan and Phil saw adventure in every day. They enjoyed the Shire together, each day an adventure – for years and years, just as they always wished they would. 

Adventure was in every second breakfast – too-sweet cups of coffee and Dan always making perfectly runny eggs. 

In flowers that bloom year round, and in Dan teaching Phil to care for them. 

In the thumps of their hobbit feet against the wooden floors of their shared hobbit-hole while they swing each other round and round, both always singing the Elven tunes desperately off key. 

In sitting by the fire in one shared chair, even though they don’t quite fit and they have two of them. 

That’s where we find them now, curled up after a few hours-long breakfast, letting their food digest before a planned late afternoon romp in the garden. 

“Dan,” Phil shifts in his lap to look from the warm fire to Dan’s warm eyes, “I’m glad you’re with me. Have I ever told you that?” Phil cocks his head, his soft grin turning into more of a smug smirk. 

Dan huffs out a laugh, wrapping his arms tighter around Phil’s middle, pulling him close. 

“Yeah,” Dan says, that same smirk on his own face. “I believe so.” 

The greatest adventure of all, though? For Phil, that great adventure is loving Dan. And for Dan, obviously it is loving Phil. That’s the only adventure’s path either of them ever want to keep their little hobbit feet moving on anyway. 

And, of course, even from their cozy hobbit-hole in the Shire, their part in the story goes on. 

_Sindarin mellon derives from Old Sindarin melnā ("dear, beloved"), from the root MEL ("love")._

  
  



End file.
